Merry Christmas to you Sherry, I was gone yesterday my son did the cooking, so this is a bit late... but HAPPY NEW YEAR and may all your roses burst forth with joy ! I have 6 roses coming from Cool Roses, this coming week, and my grandson is coming to help me plant them, I followed your advice and ordered several you recommended, for which I thank you... anyway, all the best in the coming year, to you and all the GW folks.... sally

There is only two weeks left to sign up! I hope more sign up and join in the fun. Please email me thru my page to sign up. It's always so much fun to see who has sent you a card each day when you go to the mail box! Tami

First step - tradition - bundling up as kids, taking axes & saws, and tromping thru snow to find that perfect tree to cut down, and somehow getting it home. Always placed in the corner, so perfect it had to be tied to the two adjoining window sills with rope to keep it standing. Ah, that fresh pine smell. Ah, a week later, needles everywhere! So what, we had a tree. It was adorned with those big lights, bubble lights, an array of fabulous ornaments, and the tinsel. Always looking every day in case a new wrapped gift appeared under the tree. I never have, and never will, shake, peek, or question the giver. A gift should be a surprise. The gift pile would magically increase overnite after Santa's Christmas Eve visit, and the cookie plate would be empty. Early risng was necessary on Christmas morning to see the bounty, and siblings would wake siblings first. Old parents can wait. Breakfast was on the fly, if at all. It was a full morning of PJ's and paper and toys (and boring socks!) Everyone had their pile of goodies before the wrappings were discarded. We had to be dressed before the big meal, usually 1:00. The dining room table was fully extended, and the fine china place settings carefully placed. The best meal was duck, roasted to crispy perfection with all the trimmings. Gobble gobble, and back to the toys. Christmas Day was for our family to enjoy Christmas, not running all over the place. Friends/relatives could visit the next day, or whenever. New Years Day, the holiday was over, so take down the tree. Ornaments were carefully packed away. And a final vacuum of those needles. The tree was chopped into small pieces and shoved into the coal furnace. Roast Pine! Bye bye Christmas for another year. The picture shows one box of some of the tree ornaments, which I still have. There are also some of the huge, round, hand painted ones. Fa La La, and Merry Christmas to all.

Thank you for the good wishes ... and may you also have a blessed, happy Christmas, with loved ones and friends. The pic would not be too pleasing to many of the citizens of Ontario and east, as they have had a huge ice storm on Sunday, with about a hundred thousand clients in Toronto without electricity as of last night, still about half of that, and now it's getting down to near zero, so many are moving to warming centres, and there's major concerns about pipes freezing. I've been kicking myself since last night, figuring that I should have gone to find a generator to go down to fire up people's freezers, as I've done in ice storms in the past. People want me to fire up their furnace, as well, but they are directly connected to the outside lines and, even though the main switch may be turned off, I've been afraid to risk putting power back out on the line when linemen figure it's dead. Hope you all have a happy, blessed Christmas, if that celebration matters to you. ole joyful